Day 2: 9:35am

November 4, 2012

Dawn of Day 2 – 6 days of dev to go.

I’m pleased with my progress thus far: in something like 36 hours I’ve used SQL Server Data Tools to build a very rudimentary Mutlidimensional OLAP Cube, with one Measure and a handful of Dimensions. I spent some time exploring different sections of my data using the Cube Browser and was excited with the results and the myriad possibilities for analysis.

Today will be my last full day of unstructured time for development, so I want to take full advantage. Tomorrow PASS Summit 2012 kicks off across the street, and I’ve got two full-day seminars to look forward to on Monday and Tuesday, followed by three days of conference sessions before heading back to Toronto.

I’d to accomplish a few things today:

Stuff the Goose:
I’ve got just under 7 million rows in my lone Fact table.
Chump change.
To really understand the scaling potential, I’m going to fill that skinny Fact table with a lot more data. I’ve always been a fan of Red Gate‘s DBA tools, and will use their SQL Data Generator to that end today.

Speak the Language:
Cube Browsing in SSDT was fun – seeing the results grid light-up instantaneously as I dragged and dropped Measures and Dimensions – so I’ll be venturing back into familiar territory with SSMS and trying to replicate the results using MDX. I’m already feeling quite saturated with the all of new OLAP nomenclature, so I’ll have to find some room in my head for the MDX syntax. I’m comforted by the sight of the familiar SELECT, FROM, and WHERE structures, but know that the experience is going to be different from writing TSQL.

Time for some breakfast, and then it’s back to battle.
Looks like the weather will cooperate with 6 more days of programming: